Foreword: So after spending some time really looking at what I've stuck out there, I realized that I may have gotten a bit ahead of myself. I was so eager to get into the Potter awesomeness, that I didn't really have a finished product. Overall i'm not thrilled by what I got out. It comes off as a beat over the head info dump, with some action thrown in. I can do better, and you folks deserve it.

So i'm taking a step back and looking at this from a new angle. Those two chapters already out, will be worked in...but in a hopefully a much better format. Let me know what you think. Here's the start hope you continue to enjoy. -VR

After all, it wasn't as if Necromancy was legal….

A shabby man pondered that thought, as he shifted and rolled his thinning frame, trying to get comfortable on a wood pallet covered in tarps. He was currently hiding in the dank hold of the Midnight Queen as steamed along on her way to Europe. His name was Tobias Yendell, practitioner of magic by birth; he fled his homeland of America two steps ahead of magical law enforcement. They sought him in connection with evidence of someone working dark magical acts in local graveyards in the neighboring communities surrounding his home in Rochester, Pennsylvania. As the local wizard "dead-head" he was high on the suspect list.

As he rubbed his hands up and down his arms huddling underneath his robes, he snorted in remembrance of how naive he was. When the agents of the American Assembly of Wizards came to speak with him, first he cooperated with, and then even offered his assistance to try help and aid the investigation. At the time, he had nothing to hide, Death Magic, often lumped into the category of "Dark Arts" by European practitioners weren't forbidden in the Americas. Too many voodoo witch doctors and native spirit shamans called the pair of continents home to ever get that put into law.

Those practicing more main stream focus based magic only had limited success with "Spirit Magic" as those who studied it preferred to call it. Relying heavily on group ritualized workings, only suitable for very specific locations and times to be effective made it a fickle discipline. The generally high failure rates of workings, tied with the very specific requirements made a lone scholar of the arts living in a non magical or "Muggle" community a rather low risk.

Though not illegal per say, a school being composed of generally grey or black magic, and having many reasons to tempt people into using them, it was a watched with a critical eye. Especially with its brushes at breaking the self imposed separation from the non magical world at large. Apparently the séance craze of the last century wasn't completely based on hoaxes.

While the sandy haired, thirty four year old, Pennsylvania native tried to be accommodating to the agents as possible in their case, the half finished zombie like constructs found poorly hidden in vandalized crypts, shifted the dynamic of their interactions. He found himself watched; catching glimpses of plain clothes agents taking note of his movements. Despite their assurances that he had been cleared of suspicion, he began to feel less trusting on the matter.

The final straw broke when returning home one night, Tobias detected evidence someone had forcibly entered his abode. Either a frustrated agent trying to create a lead, or the actual perpetrator trying to cover his tracks, it was clear someone was trying to set him up. The rare and highly restricted texts, ritual inscriptions scrawled along the floor and walls, and the gallon of blood under preservation charms to stay fresh lent good support to either assumption. Tobias doubted that his next "chat" with AAW agents was going to end well.

Hastily packing what few belongings he could think to take with him, he fled into the night. This sudden flight, taken with the "evidence" whipped up fervor in the AAW much akin to the baying of hounds in the hunt and lead to a country wide manhunt for the rising "dark warlock". The fear of an actual Necromancer on the loose generated such a panic that no stone would be left upturned until the dark wizard was found and drug out to burn in the light.

For weeks, Tobias managed to evade pursuers but had to keep on the move. The Assembly managed to get the mundane government to hunt for him under the pretense that he was a child predator, which considering some of the crypt bodies were of young adults, wasn't a complete falsehood. Denied safe harbor even "going muggle", Yendell eventually managed to sneak aboard the cargo vessel due to travel to Southampton, England.

Passing the trip stealing food, and when discovered using a "confounding curse", a spell that would disorient and cause temporary memory loss to make sure the crew didn't notice him. Laying low, he had many hours to ponder his situation. What were the odds that someone would have shown up near his home and begun to work on inferni? It was one of the banned disciplines, true Necromancy raising the dead to act as a thrall, frankly the concept made Tobias' skin crawl.

Thinking about it he paused, while creepy the critical thing is that it's not simple process, requiring as he understood it, great skill to even get to the point the failed attempts had reached. Racking his brain trying to remember the little bit he'd read about the process, he couldn't recall a reason one would need to get rid of the bodies. Even part of the failed attempt, unless they were destroyed, they could be reused it wasn't like the bodies were going to get even deader. So why discard them to be so easily found?

While never a particularly strong or intelligent wizard, he was far from stupid. Believing in the system he dutifully kept his head down and followed the rules set out by the AAW. As required when he found his interested peaked, he'd registered himself as a scholar or the spirit arts, so that he could study them without drawing ire, but the AAW did keep an eye on what he was doing and likely knew he had nowhere near the skills to pull this working off.

His thoughts came to crashing halt when realization struck him; he'd been set up as bait. Someone with influence had managed to cast suspicion on him. The bodies were just to sell it to the skeptical, someone who was a true dark warlock, a Necromancer in every meaning of the term, managed to successfully turn the government's focus into a wild goose chase, hunting him down, probably to draw attention away from themselves.

Somebody, because they wanted to delve into an art that was so horrible it was banned worldwide, had ruined his life. It was worse than that, Necromancy was illegal, being found practicing would result in being sentenced to death, generally in as most painful way possible. The concept that someone had just callously decided to send him to his death, because it was convenient for them roared through his mind. Rage, almost indefinable sparked in the pit of his stomach. He'd never hurt anyone, he'd played by the rules all his life, and yet still someone had the gall to try and sacrifice him like a pawn.

Hiding in that rat infested cargo hold, something broke inside Tobias Yendall, and the world was going to burn because of it…..